Hanger Tab Packaging Design and Branding: Ave-Ator Sunglasses

The primary objective of this project was to design a hanger tab style box for a small product and a brand. The product of choice was aviator-style sunglasses, which are often used by individuals with an interest in travel or fashion, and those who live in an area that is prone to a large amount of sunlight. Deliverables for this project included: a mood board, thumbnail and refined sketches for branding and templates, a digital, flat, blank vector template using Adobe Illustrator, a final, fully designed digital template, and a final physical prototype. The measurements, shape, and design of the blank template were established with the size of the sunglasses in mind, to ensure the box would not be too large or too small. Once final measurements were tested and finalized, the graphic elements were then planned and placed. Photos were strategically taken by placing the sunglasses on a smoothly sloped white chair by a window with natural light. City buildings were reflected in the lenses to give an added sense of exploration and adventure. This final result was sunglass packaging in a commercial design style that features high contrast and bright colors, while encouraging exploration

The Way to Well-Being Through Safety, Trust and Freedom: A Youth-Driven Framework for Older Youth in Child Welfare

The current study looks at the experience of well-being among young people who experienced foster care in the United States. The objective of the project was to seek a comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon of well-being from the perspective of those with most direct knowledge of it: youth in care themselves. Chapter 1 includes an overview of the social, historical, policy, and clinical landscape underpinning the study, starting with a summary of the current state of the child welfare system in the United States. This includes a look at two key contextual factors – structural racism and neoliberalism – that impact child welfare. This is followed by the relevant history and policy framings of well-being as a concept of importance within the field. Then, the chapter explores various theories and models of well-being that are relevant to the focal population of this study. Finally, it offers a comprehensive summary of the outcomes, risks and strengths of youth in care. Chapter 2 reviews the extant literature base related to defining the well-being concept in child welfare. This includes literature in the realms of child welfare policy, research and practice from the US and around the world. The latter part of the chapter is dedicated to methodological considerations that can best engage young people in the research process, which informed the current study’s design. The methodology for the study was an integrated qualitative approach combining phenomenology, Participatory Action Research (PAR) and photovoice-inspired art elicitation. The next three chapters relate directly to the current study. The methodological process of this study is covered in Chapter 3. The chapter begins with an exploration of the researcher’s positionality and other factors that informed the research. Then, it describes in detail all phases of the multi-faceted approach to the methods, from engaging young people as co-researchers who helped shape the study design, through the participant recruitment, data collection, and comprehensive qualitative analysis. Chapter 4 outlines the comprehensive findings, which through the researcher’s theoretical sensitivity, point to a framework of well-being for youth in the child welfare system. The framework considers the trauma context of youths\u27 previous and on-going experiences of harm and loss, then illustrates a set of elements that either contribute to or detract from their well-being in and through the system. The youth-informed conceptualization of well-being concludes this chapter. Lastly, these findings are discussed in Chapter 5, as are the methodological processes employed to reach the results. I also relate the study process and findings back to the literature of the first two chapters. This final chapter concludes with a set of implications and recommendations for the field of child welfare and beyond based on the study’s process and results, while acknowledging the study’s limitations. The study’s well-being framework offers a promising direction for future policy, practice and research activities to understand, measure and intervene to provide for the well-being of youth in care

A Study of Thymidylate Synthase Expression as a Biomarker for Resectable Colon Cancer: Alliance (Cancer and Leukemia Group B) 9581 and 89803.

PurposeTumor levels of thymidylate synthase (TS), a target of 5-fluorouracil (5-FU)-based chemotherapy for colorectal cancer, have been studied as a predictive or prognostic biomarker with mixed results.Patients and methodsTumor TS levels were prospectively evaluated in two adjuvant therapy trials for patients with resected stage II or III colon cancer. TS expression was determined by standard immunohistochemistry and by automated quantitative analysis. Tumor mismatch repair deficiency (MMR-D) and BRAF c.1799T > A (p.V600E) mutation status were also examined. Relationships between tumor TS, MMR-D, and BRAF mutation status, overall survival (OS), and disease-free survival (DFS) were investigated in the subset of stage III patients.ResultsPatients whose tumors demonstrated high TS expression experienced better treatment outcomes, with DFS hazard ratio (HR) = 0.67, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.53, 0.84; and OS HR = 0.68, 95% CI = 0.53, 0.88, for high versus low TS expression, respectively. No significant interaction between TS expression and stage was observed (DFS: interaction HR = 0.94; OS: interaction HR = 0.94). Tumors with high TS expression were more likely to demonstrate MMR-D (22.2% vs. 12.8%; p =  .0003). Patients whose tumors demonstrated both high TS and MMR-D had a 7-year DFS of 77%, compared with 58% for those whose tumors had low TS and were non-MMR-D (log-rank p =  .0006). Tumor TS expression did not predict benefit of a particular therapeutic regimen.ConclusionThis large prospective analysis showed that high tumor TS levels were associated with improved DFS and OS following adjuvant therapy for colon cancer, although tumor TS expression did not predict benefit of 5-FU-based chemotherapy. The Oncologist 2017;22:107-114Implications for Practice: This study finds that measurement of tumor levels of thymidylate synthase is not helpful in assigning specific adjuvant treatment for colorectal cancer. It also highlights the importance of using prospective analyses within treatment clinical trials as the optimal method of determining biomarker utility

Tourism Development and Italian Economic Growth: The Weight of the Regional Economies

This research aims to study the relationship between economic growth and the increase in the tourism sector in Italy. Unlike most of the literature, we use the value added in the main economic sectors involved in tourism activity as a proxy for tourism development. The use of the tourism value added allows us to analyze the effect of both international and domestic tourism on per capita GDP growth. The main working hypothesis we tested is whether the relationship between GDP growth and the expansion of the tourism sector is in any way influenced by the geographic area referenced and/or the time period considered. Accordingly, we conducted our analysis at both the national and subnational (cluster) levels, splitting the original sample into two equal subperiods (1997–2008 and 2009–2019). The panel VAR analysis shows that for the country as a whole, tourism growth depends on the past value of the economic growth rate, especially for the subperiod 2009–2019. The cluster analysis clarifies that these outcomes are strongly determined by the cluster that covers the wealthiest Italian regions

GDP growth rate, tourism expansion and labor market dynamics: Applied research focused on the Italian economy

This paper focuses on the Italian economy and investigates the causal nexus between economic growth, tourism development and labor market dynamics. We performed a two-step analysis. In the first step, we evaluate whether tourism stimulates Italian economic growth or if it is the economic growth that promotes tourism expansion. To get the goal, we use panel data from 1997 to 2019 concerning the GDP and overnight stays in each Italian region. We performed the Granger causality test on the whole panel and analyzed a panelvar model. In the second step, after having established the relationship between the two variables of interest, we extended our analysis to investigate—throughout the estimate of the employment intensity of growth and the impact of GDP growth on employment, at both aggregate and disaggregate level. The main findings of our analysis are as follows: a) the existence of a unidirectional causality going from economic growth to tourism development (i.e., validation of economic-driven tourism growth hypothesis), and b) a significant estimated magnitude of the (average) employment intensity of growth

Association Between Results of a Gene Expression Signature Assay and Recurrence-Free Interval in Patients With Stage II Colon Cancer in Cancer and Leukemia Group B 9581 (Alliance)

PURPOSE: Conventional staging methods are inadequate to identify patients with stage II colon cancer (CC) who are at high risk of recurrence after surgery with curative intent. ColDx is a gene expression, microarray-based assay shown to be independently prognostic for recurrence-free interval (RFI) and overall survival in CC. The objective of this study was to further validate ColDx using formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded specimens collected as part of the Alliance phase III trial, C9581. PATIENTS AND METHODS: C9581 evaluated edrecolomab versus observation in patients with stage II CC and reported no survival benefit. Under an initial case-cohort sampling design, a randomly selected subcohort (RS) comprised 514 patients from 901 eligible patients with available tissue. Forty-nine additional patients with recurrence events were included in the analysis. Final analysis comprised 393 patients: 360 RS (58 events) and 33 non-RS events. Risk status was determined for each patient by ColDx. The Self-Prentice method was used to test the association between the resulting ColDx risk score and RFI adjusting for standard prognostic variables. RESULTS: Fifty-five percent of patients (216 of 393) were classified as high risk. After adjustment for prognostic variables that included mismatch repair (MMR) deficiency, ColDx high-risk patients exhibited significantly worse RFI (multivariable hazard ratio, 2.13; 95% CI, 1.3 to 3.5; P < .01). Age and MMR status were marginally significant. RFI at 5 years for patients classified as high risk was 82% (95% CI, 79% to 85%), compared with 91% (95% CI, 89% to 93%) for patients classified as low risk. CONCLUSION: ColDx is associated with RFI in the C9581 subsample in the presence of other prognostic factors, including MMR deficiency. ColDx could be incorporated with the traditional clinical markers of risk to refine patient prognosis

Realidad virtual en turismo, influencias sobre la imagen inducida de un destino

Las formas de promocionar un sitio turístico están evolucionando rápidamente, generando la necesidad de actualizar las técnicas de marketing y gestión de un destino de forma permanente. El surgimiento de nuevas tecnologías, ha revolucionado la manera de promocionar los lugares, es por eso que cualquier destino que desee tener éxito se debería actualizar a estos nuevos desafíos (Perdomo, Rincón, &amp; Sanchez, 2013, Guttentag, 2010). Es por ello que el presente trabajo de investigación se enfoca en dar un acercamiento al uso de la realidad virtual para la promoción de un destino; planteando a esta tecnología como un instrumento influenciador de la imagen de un destino, y en consecuencia, de la intención de visita de un potencial turista. Para llevar a cabo este trabajo primeramente se hizo una aproximación de carácter teórico, en donde se describen los conceptos fundamentales de la imagen de un destino y una experiencia de realidad virtual, para posteriormente dar lugar a un análisis cualitativo, con entrevistas, sobre las percepciones de los usuarios antes y después de una experiencia de este tipo. En una segunda etapa, y con el fin de ampliar los resultados obtenidos durante las entrevistas, se llevó a cabo un experimento exploratorio, a partir de una experiencia de realidad virtual en el marco de la Feria Internacional de Turismo de América Latina 2018, para luego compararlo con los resultados obtenidos en la presentación del mismo destino bajo otros soportes. Por último, se exponen los resultados obtenidos durante el trabajo de campo, junto con las conclusiones y una recomendación para estudios futuros sobre esta temática.Facultad de Ciencias Económica

Realidad virtual en turismo, influencias sobre la imagen inducida de un destino

Las formas de promocionar un sitio turístico están evolucionando rápidamente, generando la necesidad de actualizar las técnicas de marketing y gestión de un destino de forma permanente. El surgimiento de nuevas tecnologías, ha revolucionado la manera de promocionar los lugares, es por eso que cualquier destino que desee tener éxito se debería actualizar a estos nuevos desafíos (Perdomo, Rincón, &amp; Sanchez, 2013, Guttentag, 2010). Es por ello que el presente trabajo de investigación se enfoca en dar un acercamiento al uso de la realidad virtual para la promoción de un destino; planteando a esta tecnología como un instrumento influenciador de la imagen de un destino, y en consecuencia, de la intención de visita de un potencial turista. Para llevar a cabo este trabajo primeramente se hizo una aproximación de carácter teórico, en donde se describen los conceptos fundamentales de la imagen de un destino y una experiencia de realidad virtual, para posteriormente dar lugar a un análisis cualitativo, con entrevistas, sobre las percepciones de los usuarios antes y después de una experiencia de este tipo. En una segunda etapa, y con el fin de ampliar los resultados obtenidos durante las entrevistas, se llevó a cabo un experimento exploratorio, a partir de una experiencia de realidad virtual en el marco de la Feria Internacional de Turismo de América Latina 2018, para luego compararlo con los resultados obtenidos en la presentación del mismo destino bajo otros soportes. Por último, se exponen los resultados obtenidos durante el trabajo de campo, junto con las conclusiones y una recomendación para estudios futuros sobre esta temática.Facultad de Ciencias Económica